第48章 March - August, A.D. 69(25)

Moreover Caecina and Valens celebrated the birthday of Vitellius by exhibiting in every quarter of the city shows of gladiators on a vast and hitherto unparalleled scale. He pleased the most infamous characters, but utterly disgusted all the respectable citizens, by building altars in the Campus Martius, and performing funeral rites to Nero. Victims were slaughtered and burnt in the name of the State; the pile was kindled by the Augustales, an order of the priesthood dedicated by the Emperor Tiberius to the Julian family, just as Romulus had dedicated one to king Tatius. Within four months from the victory of Bedriacum, Asiaticus, the Emperor's freedman, was rivalling the Polycleti, the Patrobii, and all the old hateful names. No one sought promotion in that court by integrity or diligence; the sole road to power was to glut the insatiable appetites of Vitellius by prodigal entertainments, extravagance, and riot. The Emperor himself, thinking it enough to enjoy the present, and without a thought for the future, is believed to have squandered nine hundred million sesterces in a very few months. Rome, as miserable as she was great, afflicted in one year by an Otho and a Vitellius, what with the Vinii, the Fabii, the Iceli, and the Asiatici, passed through all vicissitudes of infamy, till there came Mucianus and Marcellus, and different men rather than a different morality.

The first revolt of which Vitellius received tidings was that of the 3rd legion, despatches having been sent by Aponius Saturninus before he too attached himself to the party of Vespasian. Aponius, however, agitated by the unexpected occurrence, had not written all the particulars, and flattering friends softened down its import. "It was," they said, "a mutiny of only a single legion; the loyalty of the other armies was unshaken." Vitellius in addressing the soldiers spoke to the same effect. He inveighed against the lately disbanded Praetorians, and asserted that false rumours were circulated by them, and that there was no fear of a civil war. The name of Vespasian he suppressed, and soldiers were dispersed through the city to check the popular gossip. This more than anything else kept these rumours alive.

Nevertheless Vitellius summoned auxiliary troops from Germany, Britain, and Spain, tardily, however, and with an attempt to conceal his necessities. The legates and the provinces were equally slow.

Hordeonius Flaccus, who was beginning to suspect the Batavians, feared that he should have a war on his own hands, and Vettius Bolanus had in Britain a province never very quiet; and both these officers were wavering in their allegiance. Spain too, which then was without a governor of consular rank, showed no alacrity. The legates of the three legions, equal in authority, and ready, while Vitellius was prosperous, to vie in obedience, stood aloof with one consent from his falling fortunes. In Africa, the legion, and the auxiliary infantry levied by Clodius Macer and soon after disbanded by Galba, again entered the service at the order of Vitellius, while all the rest of the youth promptly gave in their names. Vitellius had ruled that province as proconsul with integrity and popularity; Vespasian's government had been infamous and odious. The allies formed conjectures accordingly as to the manner in which each would reign, but the result contradicted them.

At first Valerius Festus, the legate, loyally seconded the zeal of the provincials. Soon he began to waver, supporting Vitellius in his public dispatches and edicts, Vespasian in his secret correspondence, and intending to hold by the one or the other according as they might succeed. Some soldiers and centurions, coming through Rhaetia and Gaul, were seized with letters and edicts from Vespasian, and on being sent to Vitellius were put to death.